


A Ten Step Plan For Wooing Karkat Vantas, Featuring A Multitude Of Illustrations By Your Esteemed Authors, As Well As Tips For The Aforementioned Wooing

by Amazingspaceship



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, First Dates, First Kiss, M/M, Meteorstuck, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9423005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazingspaceship/pseuds/Amazingspaceship
Summary: Kanaya, because she's a saint, makes you a list.The list is entitled "A Ten Step Plan For Wooing Karkat Vantas" and features a multitude of illustrations in purple pen."So we're doing this," you say. Your mouth threatens to twitch into something dangerously smile-shaped."Yes," says Kanaya. "We are making this happen.""Hell yes."





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leafduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leafduds/gifts).



TG: rose  
TG: rose i have a problem  
TG: rose hey  
TG: where the fuck are you  
TG: i know you have a weird schedule but it's like the middle of the fucking day  
TG: or whatever passes for day on this dumb rock  
TG: come on don't leave me hanging  
TG: i have an actual real life problem here  
TG: rose  
TG: rooooooose  
TT: Dear God, do you ever shut up?  
TG: haha i knew you were there  
TG: what took you so long  
TT: I was having, ah,  
TT: What was it Karkat called it?  
TT: A "fucking imbecilic cross-cultural exchange of alternia-shaking proportions".  
TT: Fucking being the operative term here  
TG: oh my god rose you didnt  
TT: I did  
TT: Repeatedly  
TG: oh my god my sister had sex with an alien  
TT: This is not new information  
TG: what about your maidenly virtues rose  
TT: If you've ever operated under the delusion that I am in any way "maidenly", I will have to re-evaluate my estimation of your observation skills.  
TG: yeah lmao  
TG: anyway you're obviously busy getting busy so i'll catch you later  
TT: Dave, wait.  
TT: You said you had a problem?  
TG: what who me  
TG: nope  
TG: no problems here  
TG: i'm the chilliest motherfucker around, that's me  
TG: i make the problems around here yo  
TT: Sigh  
TT: Maybe you'd better come over.

* * *

"For the love of God, please tell me you're not naked in there."

"One moment." You hear Rose moving around, or possibly Kanaya. There's the sound of fabric shuffling. Some muffled banging.

Rose greets you at the door wearing... definitely not her shirt. Oookay then. "Brother dearest." She says.

"Sister sadist," you reply, absentmindedly. Rose's room is a disaster. Kanaya waves lazily at you from the bed.

You're not sure how fucked up it is that this is becoming the new normal.

You perch on Rose's desk. Rose pulls up a chair. Kanaya (thankfully clothed) stands behind her. It's like you're having an intervention or something.

"Rose has informed me," grins Kanaya, "that you've been having some boy trouble."

You glare at Rose. "I hadn't even told you yet!"

"Elementary, my dear brother."

You groan. This was a terrible idea. "This is a terrible idea."

"On the contrary," Rose is smugger than you've ever seen her, "we believe we have the solution."

You squint at them from behind your shades. "Is this gonna turn out good, or will I look back on this conversation as the point where everything went absolutely fucking pear shaped?"

"Only one way to find out."

* * *

Kanaya, because she's a saint, makes you a list.

The list is entitled "A Ten Step Plan For Wooing Karkat Vantas" and features a multitude of illustrations in purple pen. Based on how quickly she pulls it out, you're pretty sure Kanaya's had this on hand for a while. You're not surprised to find that _this_ is what they do in their free time, when they're not off macking. Or reading Troll Twilight to each other.

"So we're doing this," you say. Your mouth threatens to twitch into something dangerously smile-shaped.

"Yes," says Kanaya. "We are making this happen."

"Hell yes."

Kanaya makes you swear upon pain of chainsaw-themed-dismemberment to follow each step to the letter. You resist. She _insists_. You relent. Rose watches you sweat from the sidelines, drinking tea with a self-satisfied smirk. You have no idea how you survived a week with these flighty broads, much less two years and three months.

It's a pretty great day.

* * *

Step one is "Fully And Completely Plan The Date Including Such Facets As Where It Will Be Held When It Will Be Held What Activities You Will Engage In What You Will Need For The Date Etcetera." It features a tiny illustration of you and Karkat on a fancy candlelight dinner date. There are what appear to be stars drawn above your heads.

The closest thing you get to stars in the furthest ring are distant dreambubbles or what you _think_ are horrorterror eyes. This calls for a bit of DIY.

"I've got it all planned out," you tell The Mayor. The two of you are working on an extension to the Can Town Memorial Library. It's important work. Very serious business. "I'm gonna string some Christmas lights along the ceiling in the common room, alchemize a table and tablecloth, and make some fancy foods for us to eat. It'll be a dinner date." You pause. "Or maybe I'll just make non-fancy food. Whatever."

The Mayor flashes you a thumbs up from where he's stacking some cans. You finish carefully embellishing the entranceway to the Snoop Dog Memorial Amphitheater, offer your fist to the mayor. Bumps are achieved. You lean over to pat his head. "You're the best monorail ever, dude." He flashes you another thumbs up, then goes back to doing his civic duty to the city.

Yeah. You've got this.

* * *

Step two is "Ask Karkat On A Date." You skip that and go straight to step three, which is "Acquire A Fancy Outfit For The Date." You have a sneaking suspicion as to why Kanaya included it in there. The tiny drawing of you in a fancy dress is pretty cute, though.

"Question," you say, as you examine your new suit. "How the hell did you get my exact measurements."

Kanaya has the decency to look embarrassed. "Do you recall the meteor game night Terezi and Vriska arranged?"

"The one where Karkat threw a fit over troll charades?" She nods. "I still don't-" Oh. "Oh," you say, aloud. "Twister."

"Twister," Kanaya confirms.

Well shit. "I'm impressed. That's some grade-A creepy, Maryam."

"Thank you," she says, as always nailing the human sarcasm. "I try my best."

"Dave," she asks, after you've tried on the suit. It fits like a glove, naturally. "I trust you have already asked Karkat on the date?" You squirm. "Dave."

"I'm working on it!"

She gives an exaggerated sigh. This is made all the more terrifying by her impressive set of fangs. "I suppose I will have to re-oil my chainsaw a day early, then. A pity."

You shove a finger at her. "This, Kanaya? This is why we can't have nice things."

She gives you a grin. There's those scary chompers again. "On the contrary, Dave, I believe that, with the right motivation, anything is possible."

You glare at her. She grins back. Fucking flighty broads.

* * *

Because you can't put it off any longer, you try to corner Karkat. Ideally somewhere private. The problem is, he's proving incredibly difficult to locate all of a sudden.

"I don't understand it," you complain to Rose. The two of you are sprawled on the floor of her room. You're mostly talking; she's knitting something that looks alarmingly like a squiddle. "It's like every time I see him there's someone else in the room, cramping my style. Or else he's nowhere to be found." Rose hums in agreement. "You have no idea how frustrating this is."

Rose sets aside her knitting and turns to look at you. "Why don't you simply message him?"

"I want to ask him in person." You watch the ceiling fan trace lazy circles on the bedroom ceiling. The floor is really uncomfortable. "It's too important to do over text."

"Hmm." You hear keyboard tapping. You can't see what she's doing from your position on the ground. "I think you should try the third floor auxiliary corridor in about twenty minutes."

You sit up and turn, just quick enough to catch her hide her laptop behind her back. You raise an eyebrow over your shades. "Is that a seer thing or a shenanigans thing."

"Yes." Rose looks extraordinarily pleased with herself.

"Rose."

"Dave."

"Fine!" You throw up your arms, cover your face with both hands. "I give up! It's official. Asking you and Kanaya for help was the worst decision of my life." Rose just smirks and pats your arm. You groan.

You still take her advice, because you're not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. Hoofbeast. Whatever.

In precisely twenty minutes and thirty-six seconds, Karkat, head buried in a book, nearly bumps into you walking through the third floor auxiliary corridor.

"Fuck!" He rubs at his head. "Shit, sorry Dave. Didn't see you there."

"It's cool." Deep breaths, deep breaths. You're leaning against the wall about mid-way through the hallway. There's no one else around. It's perfect.

"So, Karkat," (good, nice start). "I-I was wondering if you, uh," (wanted to go on a date) "wanted to, um," (go on a date) "e-eat food. With me. On, um, tomorrow."

Nailed it.

Karkat looks at you like you've grown a second head. "Sure, Dave. Won't that conflict with movie night though?"

Oh shit oh shit oh shit you completely forgot that movie night was tomorrow. Oh crap oh crap oh crap- "We'll uh," your throat is dry. "W-we'll watch a movie. A-after. After we eat the food. The food that I made. Am going to make. Yes."

Damn, but you're one smooth operator. He doesn't suspect a thing.

Karkat looks at you. Suspiciously. "Sure, Dave. That's fine by me."

"Great." You turn to leave.

"Wait!" Karkat puts a hand on your shoulder. "You don't have to leave yet. Do you want to hang out or something?"

You almost say yes. It's on the tip of your tongue. But then you remember the list, folded into a square in your pocket, and the string of Christmas lights hidden under your bed. "Nah, man, I've got things to do today. Places to go, people to see, you know how it is. I'm a busy guy."

"Oh," Karkat looks disappointed.

You stick your hands in your hoodie pocket to stop them from shaking. Damn but you're a mess of nerves. "Well, I'm uh, I'm just gonna... go." You pull a hand out to point awkwardly at the door on the other end of the hall. "But I-I'll see you tomorrow! Yes. For dinner." You back up slowly. "Yes. Um. Bye."

You abscond, leaving a mystified Karkat in your wake.

* * *

Thirty minutes later you're in Rose's room, face down and screaming into a pillow. Your ecto-sister pats your hand consolingly.

* * *

After you finish berating yourself for your romantic failings you're ready to move onto step four: preparing for the date.

Terezi, when you tell her about everything, laughs at you. For twenty minutes straight. You're pretty sure she only stops because she needs to breathe. She agrees to help, though, which you appreciate.

She helps you set up. The Mayor is too busy with Can Town and Rose and Kanaya are nowhere to be found. And of course you can't ask Karkat.

You want to make the food yourself, off course, so you're making spaghetti, because you found a cookbook and it looked easy. You'd found said cookbook propping up a table in the library, along with a copy of 'Hoofbeast Pornography Through The Ages' and 'E-Z Dismemberment For Wigglers'. You try not to think about that last one as you're working on the sauce.

Unfortunately, where one scourge sister is the other is sure to follow. Vriska walks in while you're cutting the tomatoes.

"Heeeeeeeey Dave," she says, in that obnoxiously grating voice of hers. You can hear the way she draws out the e's. "What," she looks around the kitchen- there is an open bag of flour dumped on a counter, several hastily alchemized pots and pans, and 'Italian Food For Assholes' is propped up on the counter. Using a smuppet. "...are you doing?"

"Fuck off, Vriska," you say. And then, because you have poor impulse control: "I'm making pasta."

She walks over and sniffs at the tomatoes. "Ick. Plant matter."

You raise an eyebrow. "Do trolls not eat plants?"

"Eh," she waves a hand in a 'sort of' gesture. "Sometimes. Mostly we ate meat. And bread, in grubloaf."

You raise the other eyebrow. Your eyebrows are so high they threaten to waltz right the fuck off your head. "Grubloaf has actual loaf in it? I was under the impression that it was 100% dead babies."

Vriska makes the hand gesture again. "More like 60%?"

Fucking trolls. "Whatever." You go back to chopping the tomatoes. Vriska leans on the opposite counter, a show of nonchalance. You have no idea why she isn't leaving.

"You seem... off, for some reason. Stressed." Vriska declares. "What's up?"

You glare at the tomatoes. "Get bent," you growl. "I'm not gonna give you ammo to use to fuck with me."

"I'm not trying to fuck with you!" Vriska throws up her hands. "Has it ever occurred to you that *maybe* I'm not 100% a bitch all the time?"

You look skeptically at her. You're doing so much eyebrow-raising today, it's insane.

"Okay, fine," Vriska huffs and crosses her arms. "Terezi put me up to this."

"I knew it," you say. "Wait. Terezi?"

Vriska rolls her eyes. "Yes, dumbass. Look, I know the two of you have a "history" or whatever (she makes air quotes with her fingers), but she still cares about you. And, like it or not, I'm not leaving until I get an answer."

How the hell can one troll be so fucking *aggravating* all the time. You grip the knife perhaps slightly harder than necessary. "Fine, you wanna know what's bothering me? I have a date. With *Karkat*. And I don't want to fuck this up but I don't know how to act romantic and what if he doesn't actually like me and what if I make a mistake or act weird or-"

"Woah!" Suddenly, Vriska is there, wrenching the knife out of your grip. You hadn't even registered her moving. You look down. Oh, you think, duly. You've cut yourself.

"Jegus, Strider," says Vriska, ten minutes later. "I've never seen you this anxious about something." You're rifling through the storage room for a box of bandaids. Vriska came along as to "m8ke sure you don't cut yourself on a corner or something like an idiot".

"Yeah well," you say, carefully opening a box of medical supplies. "I like to keep it cool."

She frowns. "This is really messing you up, huh."

"Surprise, surprise." You say, sarcastically. "Dave Strider doesn't know how to romance. Astonishing." You tear into a pack of bandaids.

"Ugh," Vriska flips her hair dramatically. "You don't need to worry. Just be yourself! Karkat would rather you be genuine than try to be something you're not."

You blink. Huh. "That was... actually good advice, Serket. I'm surprised."

"Also, you should wear a pirate costume! Pirates are, like, super hot. I should know!"

"Aaaaand the moment's passed."

* * *

Having finished step four, you spend the rest of the day awkwardly avoiding Karkat. Mostly you hang out with Rose, or Kanaya, or both of them (although then you just feel like an awkward third wheel. Which you kind of are, but.)

You swear you get, like, maybe four hours of sleep. The next day passes in a blur of last-minute preparations and avoiding Karkat. Rose and Kanaya promise to stay out of your way for the evening. You secure Terezi's help in distracting Vriska. The Mayor offers you a comforting thumbs-up and fistbump.

You've arranged to meet Karkat in the common room. You stand in front of your mirror and straighten your tie. You're wearing your new suit, which reminds you of some of the ones your wore on LOHAC. You fret- are you overdressed? Underdressed? You spend like twenty minutes fussing over your hair before giving it up as a lost cause.

You pause before leaving. You take a deep breath. The list is light in your pocket.

Yeah. You got this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're reasonably certain that Karkat has caught on to the "date" aspect of your date by the time you enter the common room.
> 
> Reasonably certain. Like 80%. Maybe 79%.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Littlemapleleaf for beta-ing

You don't got this. You absolutely do not got this. You cannot truthfully describe the situation as 'got' without Terezi bursting in and arresting you for 'L13S 4ND D3C31T'! All of the got-ness is gone from the situation.

You might possibly be panicking. Just a little bit.

You meet Karkat in the hallway by his room. He’s pacing when you walk up, and when he sees you he stops awkwardly in his tracks. "Are you ready to go?" he says, shuffling his feet nervously. His eyes seem to be trained everywhere except for on you. His face is turning slowly red. "Do- do I look okay?"

He looks... he looks...

"You look beautiful," you blurt, without thinking.

He really does. He's wearing a black suit, immaculately tailored, and you think you see a touch of Maryam flare. His hair is still a spiky mess, but he's obviously tried to smooth it out a little.

His eyes are a bright, vivid red. You feel your face heating up a little, too.

Step five is "Compliment The Date Partner By Remarking On Such Things Like Their Look, Demeanor, Promptness, Etcetera." You guess you can cross that step off, then.

"I- uh- thank-thanks." Karkat clears his throat. "Should we, uh," he coughs. "Go?"

You snap out of your stupor. "Yeah," you say, and turn on your heel. "Let's go."

You lead Karkat through the winding hallways of the meteor. Fuck, should you have offered him your arm? Would that be weird?

You reflect that you're walking through a meteor hurtling through space accompanied by an alien, on your way to a date with said, notably male, alien. It's possible your concept of ‘weird’ is somewhat compromised at this point.

You're halfway to the transportalizer before Terezi, happily chatting away on her weird grub-bug-whatever-phone-thing, rounds the corner. She stops, takes one look at the two of you, and gives you the biggest, sauciest, most obvious wink from behind her glasses. It's like drunken-Rose levels of un-subtle. A virtual singularity of obviousness up in here. You kind of want to die.

"Have fun you two!" she cackles. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" She pauses, considers. "Wait, probably don't do anything I would do, either!"

Karkat watches her quizzically as she saunters off. "What was all that about?"

"No idea," you lie. This date was a mistake.

Oh well. It can only go uphill from here.

* * *

You're reasonably certain that Karkat has caught on to the "date" aspect of your date by the time you enter the common room.

Reasonably certain. Like 80%. Maybe 79%.

The Christmas lights strung up along the ceiling throw soft shadows onto the metal walls, lending the room a cozy feeling it hadn't had before. You and Terezi spent all of yesterday afternoon rearranging furniture- the couch is pushed back to the far wall and the armchairs are nowhere to be seen. The nice round table from the dining room in sub-basement eight is in the center of the room, covered nicely in a "fancy" blue tablecloth (actually one of Vriska's bedsheets, thoroughly washed and with all the hair cleaned off).

Step six is "Do That Thing Where You Pull The Chair Out For Your Partner, You Know The Thing, Like In That Movie 'In Which An Oliveblooded Captain-'" etcetera etcetera. You do "that thing" with all your usual style and grace: that is to say, you push past Karkat as you're halfway to the table, wrench the chair out with a tad too much force, and then awkwardly stand there while he closes the distance between you.

You're both seated before you realize, in a white-hot flash of panic, that you forgot to bring any of the food out. The food which is, presumably, in the kitchen halfway across the meteor.

"Shit-" you say, and start to get up.

That's when The Mayor, dressed in a tiny black suit and pale red bowtie, steps into the room, a steaming platter of spaghetti on one hand and two stacked plates on the other.

What.

"What." you say out loud. The Mayor, beaming all the while, heaps heavy helpings of spaghetti onto the two plates and hands you one. "I'm pretty sure I didn't put you up to this." you tell The Mayor. He just grins, bows, and exits.

You suspect shenanigans may be afoot.

Whatever. ‘Step Six: Consume The Prepared Sustenance’ is underway.

* * *

Step Seven is ‘Make Conversation I Swear To Troll Jegus If The Two Of You Don’t At Least Try To Make Conversation I Will Throw The Both Of You Off This Meteor.’

You talk about Alternia.

"She was such a total badass, you know?" Karkat is saying. You help yourself to seconds and try to look engaged. "I mean, she would’ve had my head on a pike had she known I existed, but she was, like..." He grimaces frustrated. "I don't even know. The epitome of trolldom, I guess? Everyone aspired to be her. Wigglers grew up hearing her name. There were mandatory parties on her wriggling day. I used to have an action figure of her under my bed."

"Does it bother you," you ask, "that we'll probably end up fighting her?"

"...No," he says at last. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know."

You wait.

"...A little bit." He admits.

* * *

You talk about Earth.

“I mean,” you’re saying, “it wasn’t that big a deal. It was just a hobby, you know? But, I don’t know, it felt… fulfilling, I guess? In a weird kind of way.”

Karkat nods and makes interested noises. You slather dressing over your lettuce. Course number two is salad. You never made any salad. You don’t know where it came from. This date has possibly been hijacked, just a little bit.

Karkat seems to be enjoying himself, at any rate. “No,” he says, “I get what you mean. And now that Earth is gone, and there’s no audience, what’s even-”

“What’s even the point?” you finish. “Yeah.”

* * *

The Mayor brings out a chocolate cake. You never baked any cake. You’re so confused.

“-like quadrants, and stuff.” he’s saying. “Alternia is dead, so is there even a point in preserving something like that? Does it deserve to be preserved? And, if we do preserve it, who the fuck even for?” Karkat stabs his slice of cake with a little more force than is strictly necessary.

You’re mesmerised by the tiny speck of chocolate on his upper lip. “Don’t you kinda owe it to Alternia, though? Like, they’re gone, and you’re still here. You could at least try to preserve some of its traditions.”

He growls. “I don’t want to be an anarchronicler. I don’t want to have to preserve every fucking aspect of our glorious empire. There was some good parts, yeah, but mostly those good parts were buried under the colossally shitty parts. Quadrants were my thing, and without it, what am I?” He scowls into his cake. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier if there were no quadrants, and we pitied who we wanted.”

Your face feels hot. You’re almost certainly blushing.

(YOU’R3 DOOM3D, COOLK1D, Imaginary-Terezi tells you, in your head. JUST K1SS H1M 4LR34DY!)

(shut the fuck up, you think. i have this under control)

* * *

With dinner out of the way, the two of you make your way into the TV room, or what Karkat calls the ‘AGGRAVATION SCREEN BLOCK.’ Today you’re watching the troll version of ‘50 First Dates,’ which Karkat assures you in infinitely superior to the human version. Apparently there is more onscreen maiming.

To you this seems like a good opportunity for Step Eight: Begin Putting The Smooth Moves On Karkat You Know The Moves That You Keep Saying You Posses Even Though We Have Not Seen Any Evidence Of Them Yes Those Moves.

You’re not sure how to start, really. You try inching closer to him bit by bit, slow enough that he won't notice, but every time you get close to touching him you panic and end up on the opposite side of the couch. Karkat doesn’t notice, at least- he seems utterly entranced by whatever’s happening in the movie. Jesus, is he mouthing the lines? What a nerd.

Next you attempt a subtle ‘pretend to yawn and casually put your arm around him’ maneuver, but you chicken out halfway through and make a kind of aborted arm-waving gesture. Like you’re hailing a passing taxi or something.

Jesus Christ, you’re fucking pitiful. You try and fail to quell the rising tide of anxiety.

Your phone pings.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

TT: Try "Are you the square root of -1?"  
TG: what  
TT: "Because you can't be real."  
TG: what the hell  
TT: You’re right, too complicated.  
TT: Karkat is a fan of the simple.  
TT: How about "Is your dad a preacher?"  
TG: dude  
TT: "Because you are a blessing."  
TG: are these pickup lines  
TG: are you seriously sending me pickup lines right now  
TT: Well, you seemed to be having some difficulties.  
TT: I figured I would... assist.  
TT: "Are you an archaeologist?"  
TG: nope nope nope  
TT: "Because I've got a large bone for you to examine."  
TG: NOPE NOPE NOPE

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

Fucking meddling sisters. You scowl at Troll Drew Barrymore, who is… decapitating someone? You’re not really paying attention anymore.

Karkat looks over at you, with an expression you can’t quite read. “Dave,” he says, “I want-”

And then the power goes out.

* * *

Everything goes black. You jerk up in your seat, scramble for your strife deck, and end up faceplanting on the floor. Ow. There is a yelp above you, and then a heavy weight settles on your legs.

“Dave,” Karkat says, muffled by the rug, “I think I just tripped over your legs.”

The two of you manage to right yourselves with no small amount of scrambling. You decaptchalogue your phone- it’s still working, thankfully, and your screen is bright enough to see by. You take a look around the room. There's Karkat, looking just as freaked out as you, with his weird glowy troll eyes. He looks a bit unsteady, but gives you a shaky thumbs up.

“This is new,” you say. You’ve had flickers, once or twice, but the power has never gone out fully before. It’s a little disconcerting.

Karkat grimaces. “Tell me about it.”

Your phone pings.

GA: The Power Has Gone Out  
GA: Are You And Karkat Okay  
TG: were fine  
TG: whats going on  
GA: I Am Not Sure  
GA: But Rose Believes It May Have Something To Do With The Dream Bubbles  
GA: We Appear To Be Moving Into A Particularly Large One  
GA: Be Careful  
TG: alright

‘Kanaya says it’s a dream bubble,” you say, out loud.

“Fucking typical,” Karkat grumbles. “Every damn day it's another one of these soapy irritation spheres. And it ruined a perfectly good movie, too.”

You bite your lip. The date is pretty much off-course, now. “Let’s get out of this room,” you say. “No point in staying here if the TV won’t work.”

“...Sure.”

* * *

The meteor, you find, is significantly creepier in the dark.

Maybe it’s the muffled thumping coming from the vents, or the miscellaneous fluid stains on the floor, or maybe it’s just that the darkness makes everything so much more more unsettling. By the time you make it into the transportalizer room, your heart has climbed into your throat, and your pulse is ten times faster than usual. It’s as if you’re back in Texas, creeping to the fridge at night, your sword in your hand because Bro could be hiding anywhere. Because you might, at any point, have to fight.

You walk in single file. You in the front holding your phone up high, and Karkat trailing nervously behind you. You can feel his breath on the back of your neck.

TT: Incoming.

The whole meteor shudders. Karkat jerks suddenly behind you, and you have to suppress a whimper.

GC: W3 H4V3 OFF1C14LLY 3NT3R3D TH3 DR34MBUBBL3!  
GC: YOU SHOULD ST4RT S331NG TH3 3FF3CTS OF 1T 4NY M1NUT3 NOW  
TG: any idea where this onell spit us out  
GC: NOP3  
GC: 1 WOULD 4DV1S3 C4UT1ON  
GC: VR1SK4 4ND 1 4R3 WORK1NG ON TH3 POW3R 1SSU3 SO DONT WORRY 4BOUT TH4T  
GC: JUST TRY TO S4LV4G3 YOUR D4T3  
TG: k

“Dave,” Karkat says, so suddenly that you nearly jump. “Was that door always there?”

You look. There’s a door at the end of the hallway, where a minute ago there wasn’t. It looks wooden, unlike the rest of the doors on the meteor, and you can see a faint red light leaking out from behind it. “I guess this is part of the dreambubble,” you hazard.

Taking a deep breath, you twist the knob and pull open the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Life stuff, you know how it is, yada yada yada.
> 
> This was originally going to be just a two-shot, but it'll probably end up being three, maybe four chapters in total. I'll update quicker next time, so I hope you stick with me.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your date is pretty much ruined by now. "Hey," you say, because you have nothing to lose at this point, "wanna see my apartment?"_
> 
> In which things happen and then don't really stop happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly longer chapter today to apologize for the wait. Thanks for sticking with me!

Never before has LOHAC seemed so much like hell and so little like home.

When you step through the door it's like you’ve gone back in time. You're standing on a rusted gear in a sea of the same, miles of clockwork over a lava ocean. Bubbles of red fire burst and pop over the orange sea. The pale spire of your house looms in the distance, a thin line of architectural madness against the black sky. Everything wavers, mirage-like, in the boiling heat.

Rose once compared the dreambubbles to "hallucinations, albeit particularly corporeal ones." She had waxed lyrical about the nature of dreams, of reality, of the fluidity of memories. Some of that shit is beyond you, but you'd gotten the gist.

Hallucination or not, it has no right be be so _real_. So solid. Paradox space shouldn't be allowed to do this, to take something as intangible as a memory and make it touch you. Make it hurt you. Its disturbing.

There's a clanking noise behind you, and swearing - Karkat, getting his footing. "Dave," he calls to you, "your land sucks."

"It's an acquired taste," you reply, in the relaxed sort of drawl you use when you want to act nonchalant. You scuff at a patch of rust with your shoe. A taste you haven't really gotten into, as it turns out.

That's an understatement. You HATE it here. The heat and the metal remind you too much of the rooftop in Houston for comfort. You're tired of burning your knees on heated gears, tired of the constant ticking, tired of the oppressive heat. You thought you had put it all behind you when you died, ascended, and joined the meteor gang. Apparently not.

The scars on your chest and arms twinge with phantom pain. Fuck, you're not at all happy to be back.

"Let's get out of here."

"Great," Karkat says. "How?"

You turn, heart sinking. The door you came through is, predictably, gone. It's predictable because of course everything in your life has to be a shitshow. God forbid you have one nice night without monsters or meteors or random dreambubble adventures. "Fuck."

"I guess we wait for the dreambubble to pass," grumbles Karkat. He sits down on the edge of the gear, wincing at the heat of the metal through his pants. "It should dissipate in an hour or two, if we're lucky."

Your date is pretty much ruined by now. "Hey," you say, because you have nothing to lose at this point, "wanna see my apartment?"

* * *

KANAYA: I Hope Dave Will Remember To Follow My List  
ROSE: He probably won't.  
KANAYA: I Know  
KANAYA: But I Would Like To Pretend  
KANAYA: For Just A Moment  
KANAYA: That At Least One Of Them Possesses Some Kind Of Competency

* * *

There's an awkward minute or two where you're trying to figure out a way to fly Karkat up to your room without your hand being on his ass or him dangling from your neck. Both options strike you as extremely awkward. You settle on carrying him bridal-style, your arms gripping his legs and back, and the whole flight up you're keenly conscious of how close he is. How hot his breath is against your neck.

You let yourself in through a window, and Karkat gripes the whole time you’re fumbling with the latch. The two of you must be a strange sight: an alien and a human teenager, both in suits, breaking into an apartment through a window. You're both happy and disappointed when you finally drop Karkat on the floor - happy because any longer and you'd start thinking about kissing him, and disappointed because you missed your chance.

The apartment is eerily familiar. For a year you've been reliving your memories of the place, and now that you're back there you kind of expect there to be spiders in every corner, snakes coiled on the carpet, body parts dangling from the ceiling like a shitty haunted house. You've spent so long building the place up in your mind as a prison of pain and torture that it's somehow more unsettling when revealed to be simply... a shitty apartment.

A shitty apartment where you lived, abused, for years, so maybe you can be forgiven for turning it into a house of horrors in your mind.

"I've seen your hive, you know," Karkat says. He kicks at a smuppet with a toe. "Back in the lab, when we were trolling you guys."

"Oh, yeah." You feel kind of foolish now. Of course he wouldn't care about your apartment, he probably saw every nook and cranny of it through the trollian viewport.

"You should still give me a tour!" he says. "You know, if - if you want to."

You feel an inexplicable surge of something like gratitude. "Sure," you say. "Let's go."

You show him the living room (where he makes admiring noises at your tv) the kitchen (where he makes vaguely angry noises at all the weapons) and finally your bedroom (where he makes suitably impressed noises at your turntables and photography equipment). It’s weird, giving someone else a tour of your home. You feel as if you’re giving Karkat access to some special part of you, somewhere secret and hidden, and it feels frighteningly intimate.

You sit down on your bed, exhausted, and after a few seconds of dubious prodding Karkat sits down beside you. He bounces a little, feeling the springs move under the mattress, and when he seems satisfied that it won't immediately buck him off he leans against the wall, visibly relaxing. “Your human sleeping platforms never cease to be bizarre.”

You lean back with him. Your room has always been your haven, your safe-zone, and now that you're inside it you feel much more relaxed. The tension which had been building in your shoulders releases, and you huff out a sigh.

Karkat is studying the sky outside your window. The black of the furthest ring is solid, absolute, save for the distant flight of other dreambubbles. There’s a flash of color in the distance, a rainbow arc of light. A noise like a roar, far off in the darkness.

“Fuck,” Karkat says, and rubs at his eyes. “I guess we’re waiting it out, huh.”

You wait. You talk. Your anxiety from earlier drains away, replaced by a feeling of contentment. It should feel awkward but it doesn't - it feels like you're hanging out with a friend you've known for years. Conversation with Karkat is as easy as breathing. It’s a natural back-and-forth, give-and-take.

You are struck by a thought, and this thought is: you are incredibly, incredibly fond of Karkat.

You're fond of his nubby horns, his perpetual anger, even his affinity for crappy romcoms. You're fond of the way his hair won't lie flat, the way he crunches on his grubflakes, the solemnity with which he stacks cans while working on Can Town. You're fond of his voice, his face, his eyes. You’re so fond of _him_.

If this were any other day, you would be making jokes to distract yourself from your feelings and emotions. Right about now is when you should be cracking wise about him, about his looks, about the dreambubble you are in. Your date has morphed into something more akin to your regular, day-to-day hangouts, and maybe that’s alright. Maybe that’s perfect, how it was always meant to be.

But you promised Kanaya, and like fuck are you going to risk death-by-chainsaw, so instead of saying any dumb bullshit you scoot closer to Karkat and grab his hand.

He's warm. Much warmer than Rose's hand, or John's, or Jade's. You knew that he was on the hotter end of Alternia's bullshit blood racism thing, but he's hotter than most humans. _In for a penny, out for a pound_ you think, and scoot even closer.

He startles, and pulls his hand away. You think, for a moment, that you've fucked up - but then he laces his fingers with yours, squeezing a little bit. Fireworks go off in your head, in your heart. Everything feels hotter, suddenly, like your blood has been replaced by LOHAC lava. Your pulse pounds in your ears.

You fumble the list out of your pocket, show it to Karkat. “I never really got past step eight,” you grin, “but I think we should just skip to the end, yeah?”

“Dave, what -” he starts, but you’re already kissing him.

It’s warm. You weren’t expecting that. Karkat’s lips are as warm as his blood, as warm as fire. It’s as chaste as anything, barely even a peck - you’re chickening out too hard for it to be even more that a tiny little dart-in-dart-out of a kiss - but it still manages to feel amazing. You’ve finally fucking done it.

When you pull back your heart feels like it’s going a hundred miles per hour. Karkat stares at you, a little vacantly. “I - sorry,” you ramble, “if that’s not okay - I mean, I didn’t, I’m sorry - I’ll go -”

His gaze snaps back into focus and he grabs your arm, just as you’re getting to your feet. “Shut the fuck up,” he growls, and pulls you down into another kiss.

This time it’s longer, better. More passionate. Karkat’s a better kiss than you, somehow, even though he’s probably had just as much practice as you have. You’re making out, like, genuinely making out, and it’s the best feeling in the goddamn world.

When you finally pull away, breathless and gasping, he’s smiling. “You giant fucking idiot,” he says, grabbing you by the shoulders and leaning in. “All you had to do was ask, stupid.”

“Yeah,” you say, “hindsight, and all that.”

He picks the list up from where you’d dropped it on the bed, arching his eyebrows. You grin, sheepishly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”

“It was a good idea,” he replies, “if only you weren’t so absolutely terrible at everything.”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“I’m joking, maybe.” Karkat leans forward. “This date has been… nice. Maybe not exactly how I’d pictured it, but… nice.”

You kiss again. Everything is perfect.

And that’s when the wall explodes.

* * *

For a moment, you’re dumbstruck - plaster rains down from the ceiling, covering the carpet, your turntables, your bed. The entire west wall of your room is gone, leaving behind a ragged-edged hole. The two of you are frozen, mid-smooch, comically freezeframed with matching expressions of startelement.

Then there’s a shake, the distant boom of an explosion, and a massive crack rips across the floor of your apartment.

That, finally, snaps you into action. “Shit!” you, yell, grabbing tighter to Karkat’s hand. You push off the bed, Karkat scrambling along with you, and the two of you bolt out the door.

Everything is shaking, moving, and the only thing you can think as you run is that _the world is ending_.

The main part of the apartment is a mess. The walls look like they’ve been blown apart, and the floor is covered in spider-web cracks. A portion of drywall detaches itself from the ceiling, and you narrowly avoid a concussion by ducking to the right. There is another rumble, again from outside, and the whole apartment starts shaking harder.

“Karkat,” you say, “get on my back.”

For once, he doesn’t argue. You lift him, piggy-back style, and dive out the window.

The sudden heat hits you like a truck. Karkat is yelling something, but you can’t hear it over the pounding in your ears, and the tortured screeching of metal coming from everywhere at once. You fly downwards, landing on a stable-looking island of gears, and survey the scene.

LOHAC is being torn apart. Huge fissures zig-zag across the ocean, sucking in lava like massive drains. The huge clockwork structures tremble and shake, and you watch in horror as the distant tower of the LOHACSE collapses.

But the sky is the worst. Huge rainbow cracks arc across the blackness, the sky transformed into a picture of shattering glass. As you watch, something huge slams against the side of the bubble, something that causes new fractures to burst along the bubble’s surface. Something huge and green, something that roars and screams in fury.

“Shit,” you say. “It’s the guy.”

“What guy?” Karkat yells. He's standing beside you, and when he grabs your hand he's shaking with terror. “Jack?”

‘No, the other guy,” you shout back. “Mr. British, or whatever.”

“Lord English?”

“That’s what I said.” This is bad, This is really, really bad. “We have to get out of here.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” Karkat yells. There’s a renewed burst of noise, another tortured shriek, and the massive tower that is your apartment topples into the lava. “We’re trapped in the bubble, remember?”

You look around wildly. "We need -"

"Dave, jump!" Karkat shouts, leaping onto your back. You don't think - you bend your legs and push off the tower, just as it is obliterated by a crackling beam of energy. You twist around in midair, Karkat cursing as he swings from your neck.

The Mean Green Beam Machine is floating above the wreckage, his coat flapping in LOHAC's wind. He opens his weird mouth - that's a lot of fangs, holy shit that's a lot of fangs - and then all you can see is a huge rainbow laser, aimed directly at you.

You dive, as fast as you can, nothing in your mind but _fuck fuck fuck shit fuck_ , Karkat screaming obscenities in your ear. If he gripped any tighter he'd be strangling you to death. You might die anyway. Fuck.

The laser shears across the entire bubble, tearing through metal and lava and weird, translucent bubble-membrane. More cracks appear on the black sky, tracing a path of destruction across LOHAC’s horizon. You put on a burst of speed and fly as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

You duck through gaping holes in metal structures, fly past massive crevices in steel platforms. You squeeze through the center of a massive cog, dart around the leaning form of a crumbling yellow crocodile temple. The whole bubble is collapsing, and if you don’t find a way out it’ll take you with it.

“Dave,” Karkat pants, “slow down. I’m gonna try to call Terezi.”

“What?” You swoop past a sinking chunk of apartment. You’re heading for the Beat Mesa - you figure that's as good of a place as any to regroup and think of a plan. “You’re holding onto my neck, dude.”

“So?”

“So, your hands aren’t free.” You decaptchalogue your smuppet communicator. You don’t care what anyone says - yours is the obviously superior computing device. “I’ll do it.”

“Dave, nobody can hear you through the little foam ass.”

After some arguing you agree that you’ll make the call, but using Karkat’s weird crab-wrist-thing. The sound of it ringing feels strangely loud, even though you can still hear the shrieking of metal and the distant roars of Lord English on rampage.

“Karkat!” Terezi yells, when she finally picks up. “Don’t you know it’s rude to call someone on a date? You could offend Dave’s human sensibilities!”

“What - fuck you, you stupid -” Karkat sputters.

“Yo, TZ,” you say. “We could, like, use some assistance here, if you don’t mind.”

“Is that Dave?” you hear Rose say in the background. “Terezi, put it on speaker.”

“Wait, hold on -”

“Dave,” Kanaya says, “you better be paying attention to my list. I spent hours researching both human and troll romantic tropes, and I will not allow it to have been a waste.”

“No, listen -”

“Have you kissed yet?” Vriska wants to know. If you weren’t fleeing for your life you’d be facepalming. "Dave?"

“Shut up!” Karkat shouts. “Shut up and listen. Lord English is in the dreambubble with us.”

There is a sudden silence, punctuated only by the distant sounds of crumbling metal.

Then everyone is speaking at once, shouting - Kanaya wants you to run, Rose wants you to hide, Terezi wants you to wait him out, Vriska wants you to fight. “Shut up!” Karkat yells again, and they all fall silent. “Good. Okay. Good. Rose.”

“Speaking.”

“Can you do some kind of seer thing and tell us what our options are? We need an escape route.”

"That would be nice," you put in. "As much as I'm enjoying fleeing from an extremely powerful alien mob boss, I'm also a big fan of, you know, life. In general. The having of."

"I'll see what I can do."

Rose thinks while you and Karkat soar over the Beat Mesa. It seems like things have calmed down, though the bubble still seems ready to pop at any moment. You can’t see the Not-So Jolly Green Giant anywhere, although that doesn’t mean he’s not still around.

“The temple where Dave found the broken end of Caledfwlch,” Rose says finally. “Go there. There’ll be a door. You have to hurry.”

“Thanks,” you say. “If I die, tell The Mayor I love him.”

“He knows,” Rose says, amused. The connection ends.

You change course, banking left across the bubbling sea. The temple is right where you remember it, and, thankfully, it hasn’t yet been touched by Lord English’s destruction.

You touch down on the ledge and head inside. There’s the pedestal in the middle, the weird hieroglyphics on the walls, and on the other side of the room, a door.

“Fuck,” Karkat pants. “Thank god.”

You grab his hand and pull. “Let’s go, dude,” you say, “before -”

The ceiling shatters.

Lord English lands with a massive crunch, the floor splintering with the force of his arrival. He’s fifteen feet tall, easy, and terrifyingly buff. He stands between you and the door, his eyes rapidly flashing, his muscles tensing under his jacket.

“Fuck,” you say. “We’re going to die.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a fight, and a happy ending.

There is no sound but the crackling of flames and the distant shriek of collapsing metal; Lord English takes horrible, shuddering breaths. The veins on his neck pulse oddly, a step out of beat with your own. Tick, tock, tick, tock. A tiny piece of ceiling detaches, falls, clatters against the golden floor.

The bubble is horribly hot, and deathly still.

"When I say now," you mutter, out the corner of your mouth, "dive left."

"What?" Karkat sputters. "Hold on -"

You smell ozone, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Rainbow static crackles over English's teeth. "Now!" you yell, and dive right.

Lord English's laser tears a long, jagged crack across the far wall. The golden bricks dissolve instantly under the onslaught, and a fresh wave of tremors wrack the bubble. Shrapnel flies everywhere. You dodge, roll and come up running, reach wildly into your specibus and pull out Caldescratch. You duck around rubble and flashstep to the door - but Lord English is faster, he's already there, and when you make a grab for the handle he backhands you across the room.

You hit the wall with a sickening crunch, and see stars. Cartoon sparrows circle around your head. Godhood may grant you conditional immortality, but it doesn't promise anything about injuries. You think you might have broken a rib, or a couple.

A chat window opens up on your shades. Then another, then another.

TT: On our way.  
TT: ETA seven minutes.

GC: W3 4R3 COM1NG TO G3T YOU  
GC: ROS3 1S N4V1G4T1NG US THROUGH TH3 BUBBL3S  
GC: VR1SK4 1S C4RRY1NG M3  
GC: 1M NOT V3RY H4PPY 4BOUT TH4T >:[  
GC: BUT 1 W1LL SUFF3R THROUGH 1T FOR YOUR S4K3  
GC: ST4Y 4L1V3

GA: We Are On Our Way  
GA: Rose Is Leading Us  
GA: Please Try Not To Die In The Meantime  
GA: Stall Him If You Have To  
GA: Just Stay Alive  
TG: roger that

Your shades blink off, just in time for you TO see Karkat dart behind a pillar. Lord English snarls, and rips the whole thing from the floor, Karkat clinging to the pillar's side like one of those window Garfields. Fuck no, you think, and wobble shakily to your feet.

You try to walk and can only manage a slow limp, so you fly instead. Rooting around in your sylladex yields nothing more useful than a coffee mug (World's Coolest Knight) and half a dragon plush. You throw the former at English and yell "hey asshole!"

The mug bounces off his weird, veiny skull and shatters on the floor. English turns and glares at you with his scary pool-ball eyes, his maw curled into a snarl. Jesus Christ, he's scary. You have to suppress the urge to turn tail and flee.

"Yeah, you! You're ugly!” You flounder wildly for an insult. “You look like a garbage truck had a one-night stand with the swamp thing and forgot to wrap up first!" It’s not your best, but, well, you’re not exactly operating at 100% right now.

Lord English roars. Good going, Dave. A+ survival instincts. Provoke the all-powerful skeleton monster, what a good idea. You're definitely going to die now, and it'll be a Just death because you totally deserve it.

He heaves the whole pillar at you, which is exactly what you didn't want to happen. You catch a brief glimpse of Karkat's terrified face as it accelerates towards you. Caldescratch flies up, your hands moving of their own accord, and you're a hair's breadth from slicing it in half before you realize that the cut would get Karkat as well. You manage to abort the slice but it's too late to dodge, and the pillar hits you with the force of a massive, cylindrical, golden brick bus.

Rubble flies everywhere, and you go flying. You hit the floor heavy and see stars, again. This time the birds circling your head are as big as hawks. You can hear Karkat groaning from somewhere to your left, and the ugly laugh of Lord English as he stomps closer. Black spots pop in the corners of your vision.

Something springs unbidden to your mind - a time when you hurt like this, but worse. You think of the cawing of crows and a slouched man in a hat, and a heat just as intense as this one. Your arms and your legs were wrecked, and his last punch has sent you tumbling down the stairs. You can even visualize one of the crows that was there, laughing at you - through your blurry vision you see it perched on a broken pillar, then taking flight through a hole in the roof, cawing...

And the dreambubble changes.

Grey concrete blooms in monochrome arcs across the temple’s floor, spilling like watercolor paint, chasing away the dirty gold bricks, smearing the temple with grays and blacks. The air is filled suddenly with a rancorous cawing, and a swarm of black birds appear on the floor, on the walls, in a ragged flock loitering on the center dais. Through a crack in the wall, you can see a familiar skyline beginning to take shape on the horizon. There is a distant, ghostly noise of honking horns, and the merest whisper of sirens.

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

"What?" Karkat yells.

You crawl over to him, wincing at the pain in your ribs. He's buried under a pile of rubble, and so you wedge Caldescratch under the bit of pillar that's pinning him down and throw your weight on it. The thing rises and Karkat rolls out and fuck, that’s a lot of blood.

"Dude," you say, "you’re injured." His suit is soaked through with red, and you realize that yours is probably just as bloody. Shit. Kanaya is going to kill you.

"It's nothing," he says, sitting up. He looks at you, and your heart sinks when you realize that his eyes are unfocused and glassy. “What’s going on?”

“We have to get out of here,” you say. “Can you move?”

Karkat tries to stand. You see what’s going to happen before it does, and when his legs collapse you dart forward to catch him. He’s heavy, fuck, and you almost drop him, but manage to orient yourself into something like a standing position. His head ends up tucked just underneath your chin. You try to juggle him and Caldescratch for a minute, and eventually give up and dump the latter back into your sylladex. “This is, like, the eighth time I've carried you today,” you mumble into his hair.

“Sorry,”

“No, dude, fuck,” you heft him higher in your arms and take an experimental step - still no better. Hovering it is, then. “I’ll always carry you.”

“Dave,” he laughs into your chest, “that’s the most stupidly romantic thing you’ve ever said.” And then he faints, all at once, and you’re left clutching him to your chest amid the shattered memory of a dead city’s rooftop.

* * *

TEREZI: MOV3 F4ST3R!  
TEREZI: 1F W3 DONT G3T TH3R3 SOON TH3YLL PROB4BLY B3 D34D!  
VRISKA: I'm flying as fast as I can, Pyrope!  
VRISKA: May8e if you hadn't forgotten your rocket wings........  
TEREZI: WH3R3 3LS3 WOULD 1 L34V3 TH3M?!  
TEREZI: 1 W4SNT 3XP3CT1NG TO B3 4 P4RT OF 4 CR4ZY R3SCU3 M1SS1ON TOD4Y!  
VRISKA: Well neither was I, so may8e you can excuse my apparently shitty flying????????  
KANAYA: Can You Two Not Do This Now  
KANAYA: Or At Least Have Your Pale Arguments More Quietly  
KANAYA: Rose Is Trying To Concentrate On Divining Our Path Forward  
KANAYA: As Well As On Carrying Me  
KANAYA: And I Fear That If You Distract Her She Might Lose Concentration On One Of The Two  
KANAYA: And I Have No Desire To Become A Green Stain On The Side Of A Dreambubble  
VRISKA: Mind your own fucking 8usiness!!!!!!!!

* * *

The ghostly city on the horizon is covered in tiny lights. A plan is starting to take shape.

You float your way towards the door, Karkat unconscious in your arms, the toes of your sneakers brushing against the floor. Lord English watches your approach, silently.

When you get close enough you set Karkat down gently, and make him as comfortable as you can. You brush the hair from his face and kiss his temple, once. Then you turn and face Lord English.

“I’ve figured some things out,” you tell him.

You take a step forward.

Lord English says nothing, just as you suspected he would. You’re mostly just talking to yourself. “Dreambubbles are just memories, yeah? And the thing about memories,” you hold out an arm and flick your sylladex open, and with another flourish pull a sword out of thin air. “Is that they show up when you least expect it.”

“I think that’s probably what ruined my date,” you continue. “I got anxious and, boom, the bubble manifested as the place that I felt anxious in the most. Well, second most.” You gesture to the mishmash of temple and Houston rooftop around you, to the broken skyline and the smog rising out of the lava outside. “But I guess that ship has sailed, huh?”

Lord English waits.

You move closer.

“Anyway, enough about my problems.” You’re close enough that you can see every vein on his face, every chip on his teeth, every bubble of light caught in his weird, flashing eyes. His appearance is weirdly comical, but you’re not laughing.

You close your eyes.

One night when you were little your brother stood before you, him in the stupid polo shirt that he wore everywhere and you in your little dinosaur footie pajamas, and he wordlessly offered you a sword. Ever since that moment you've known nothing but the flash of blades, the clanging of metal, and the sting of a katana. You have scars on your legs, arms, chest. And, you're coming to realize, scars in your mind.

So you don’t think of that. You think of John. Of Jade. Of Rose, Terezi, Kanaya, even fucking Vriska. Aradia, too, when she shows up. Memories swirl around you, scenes from your life: staying up ‘til midnight talking to John on Pesterchum, hanging out with Rose in your room on Derse, stacking cans with the Mayor while Kanaya knits in the corner. Karkat - the first time you talked, the first time you met, pulling pranks on him when you had just gotten to the meteor, eating dinner one night and noticing how he chewed his food, like he had a personal vendetta against every inch of the meat and wanted to see it pummeled into the flattest possible form. The way he glowers, in the halls, the way he concentrates intently during movie nights. Your disastrous date, carrying him through the air to your room, holding hands with him on your bed.

The feel of his lips on yours.

You open your eyes.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” you say, “or even if I’m going to make it out of this. But let’s get one thing straight” - and here your draw your sword level to his eyes, vertical - “I’m not going down without a fucking fight.”

You drop into a stance. “Let’s dance, motherfucker.”

English roars, and charges.

* * *

Lord English moves with all the grace, fluidity, and force of an oncoming train.

Fighting a god - or whatever English is, whatever mutant half-life he’s carved out for himself - means you can’t make any mistakes. When he lunges forward, claws raking across your front, you have to move in perfect time to dodge. When his weird energy-breath dissolves a wall, you have to step quickly enough to avoid getting cremated. When you launch yourself into the air, a half-formed plan racing through your brain, you fly so perfectly that he can’t gain any ground.

You lead English away from Karkat, away from the door, through jagged holes in metal scaffolding and across bubbling pools of molten fire. Lord English is fast, but you’ve spent the past twenty-seven months racing Rose in laps around the meteor’s gloomy halls, and so you manage to stay one step ahead of him.

The first part of your plan - getting him away from Karkat - completed, you screw up your eyes in concentration and begin to enact step two.

Dreambubbles are malleable by nature. It only takes a minute or two of reminiscence before the jumbled skyline of LOHAC and Texas disappear, replaced by the soft white curves of the Land of Frost and Frogs. Jade’s planet stretches before you, forested and frozen, the surface steaming where recalcitrant bits of LOHAC meet fresh snow, the tall blob of the Forge stretching high and proud at the very center.

You’re really, really bad at plans.

Lord English is a machine, basically, a super buff skeleton machine with a weird coat and bad teeth. You can’t beat him, and you can’t kill him, but if you want to get him to stop you’ll certainly have to injure him. The best way you can think to do that is something big, something powerful. Like a nuclear bomb, or a volcano.

You swoop low over the bright circle of the Forge's crater, and when you’re low enough that you can feel the heat of it seeping through your clothes you reach blindly into your sylladex and pull out a cherry bomb. It vanishes into the lava with a short blurp, and the surface of the volcano starts to boil.

It takes two more passes, Lord English raging behind you the whole time, before the Forge has been stoked to peak instability. Lava churns and laps at the crater's rim. You slow, float to a stop above the mouth, and turn to face Lord English.

This is the crucial part, the timing. You wait. English is 80 feet from you, then 40, then 20, then 10-

You reach into your sylladex, fling a cube of shaving cream into the volcano's mouth, and shoot off as fast as your can towards the temple just as Lord English skids to a stop, directly above the volcano.

There is a massive noise, like a thousand cannons firing at once, and the volcano explodes.

* * *

TEREZI: WO4H  
TEREZI: WH4T TH3 FUCK W4S TH4T

* * *

Everything is black.

You open your eyes to a grassy field, a picturesque vista covered in beautiful horses. Their manes ripple in a nonexistent breeze. You're siting on the top of a hill, the soft earth comfortable beneath you. It's quiet. Quiet and peaceful.

"Fuck," you say, "I'm dead."

"Not quite,” says a voice, “but you came close."

You turn and there's Aradia, sitting on a bolder beside you, her knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. Light glances off the curve of her fairy wings, reflecting the faint sun above you. "That's not nearly as comforting as you think it is," you say, and throw up.

But of course you're in a dreambubble, so what comes up is a memory of vomit, a viscous fluid that burns your throat and comes out looking more like yogurt than yesterday's lunch. Afterwards you wipe your mouth on the torn sleeve of your suit and turn to face Aradia.

She’s just like you remember, with her ram’s horns and her creepy smile and her bright red godtier outfit. “So what,” you say, “I’m dreaming? In a coma? Bleeding out in that dreambubble?”

“Yes to the first one.” She gestures to the bubbles black, wavering sky, where in the distance you can faintly see a tiny red dot. “Watch.”

You get to your feet (you don’t feel any pain, which is either a good sign or a bad one) and hop onto the bolder next to her. For a long while the two of you sit there, staring out into the blackness, watching as the red dot trembles, glows bright, and finally explodes. Bright white cracks arc across the furthest ring.

“You’re lucky you made it out,” Aradia says. “He was probably toying with you, or maybe he didn’t expect you to fight back. Anyhow, you’re asleep and alive, which is pretty much the best you could have hoped for.”

“I don't remember making it out,” you confess. “I remember blowing him up, but nothing after that.”

“The explosion knocked you back down to the temple,” Aradia says, “after which you picked up Karkat's unconscious body and carried him through the door. Very romantic! Nine out of ten for style. I can't account for anything after that, but neither of you are in the bubble anymore. You put up quite the impressive fight!”

“My date was ruined, though,” you grumble, scuffing at the desert sand with your heel.

“Yes, I saw that,” Aradia says. “You realize that you could have asked him out at any point in the past sweep, right?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, “I do.”

“Then why,” she asks, as the dreambubble begins to fade, “did you wait?”

* * *

When you come to it is to the sight of the meteor's drab, grey ceiling. You're not sure if this is an upgrade or not.

“Fuck,” you say, “my ribs hurt like a mother-”

And then Rose is there, suddenly, seizing you by your arms and sweeping you into a crushing hug. “Dave,” she says, her voice choked, and then she's clutching you tightly and sobbing into your shoulder.

“It's okay, Rose,” you mutter, patting her hair awkwardly. “I'm fine, I'm okay.”

“I thought,” she gasps, “I thought you died, I, I, I thought we, we lost you, God, don't ever do fucking do anything else like that again.” She squeezes your waist like she's reassuring herself that you're still there.

“Rose,” you wince, “my ribs - if you could stop squeezing, maybe -”

“Oh!” she says, and backs off. “Um, how are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” you say, sitting up. “Where am I? What happened? Where's Karkat?”

You look around. You're lying on your bed in your room, which looks exactly as messy as you remember. You notice that there's a chair next to your bed you're in, and a book propped open on the arm. Has Rose been sitting and waiting for you to wake up? You're filled with a sudden flood of affection for your sister.

“You've been unconscious for fourteen hours,” Rose tells you. “We found you and Karkat passed out on the floor of one of the lower corridors. You've got some nasty burns and a bunch of your ribs are broken.” She bites her lip and gives you a worried look. “What happened in there?”

“I'll tell you later,” you say quickly. “Where's Karkat?”

Rose, maybe sensing your anxiety, says “he's fine. Resting. Kanaya's with him, I think.”

You lever yourself out of your bed. “Take me to him.”

“Dave,” Rose objects, “I don't think you should be walking around - ”

But you're already limping out the door. Rose catches up with you halfway down the hall and follows you to Karkat's room. She looks worried, but raises no more objection, for which you are grateful.

You're halfway to Karkat's room, dizzy with panic, when you hear a voice wafting through the corridor in front of you: “I'm fine, Kanaya, stop fussing, all I want to do is see -”

You skid to a stop and stare frozen down the hallway.

“ - Dave,” Karkat finishes.

Time slows down.

For a moment the two of you just stare at each other, unmoving; then you're running and he's running and you sweep him into your arms, and he leans in and pulls you into a kiss.

You can hear Rose and Kanaya giggling behind you, but you don't care – Karkat is warm and real and alive, so alive, and you want to stay there and hold him forever and never let go.

“Dave,” Karkat says into your mouth, “this has simultaneously been the worst and best date I've ever been on.”

And then you're laughing, and he's laughing, and the two of you stand close together in that hallway; both in burnt and ragged clothes, both dressed to the nines, holding onto one another as tightly as you possibly can.

You stay like that for awhile. You have all the time in the world.

* * *

Afterwards the two of you sit alone in the common room. Some movie is playing on the TV, but you're barely paying attention.

“So,” Karkat says, “Kanaya said she made you a list?”

“Fuck off,” you groan, sinking back into the cushions of the couch. He laughs and steals your shades.

“It's cute, kinda,” he says. “You're really bad at this, aren't you?”

“I'm – yeah, I guess.”

He silent for a moment. “Well,” he says, finally, “I guess you'll just have to do better next time.”

You sit up in your seat. “Next time?”

“I'm not very good at it either,” Karkat admits, “Romance, I mean. But I think we could figure it out, between the two of us. If we worked together.”

And he leans forward and kisses you.

* * *

You have a new list.

It's not done yet – you're still working on it. You haven't gotten Kanaya's help with it, or Rose's, or Terezi's or Vriska's. It's a list you're compiling yourself, through trial and error, discovery and experimentation.

The list is entitled “reasons why being karkats boyfriend is awesome.”

It's currently thirty-three items long, and growing.

And you've never been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you want to follow me on tumblr or twitter you can find those at amazingspaceship and @amzngspcshp respectively.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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